Category: Work

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Analog Electronics Learning Life Work

What is an engineer?

I’ve been having what some would call an identity crisis. How, you ask? I’ve been working on digital electronics.

*GASP*!

I found out that in the early 90s and even earlier, analog engineers routinely switched from working in the analog domain to the digital domain…because it was paying really great. Not only that, most analog engineers had the expertise to do what most early digital engineers were doing (basically stringing together a lot of digital gates in DIP packages). It wasn’t until later that digital engineers started acting more as programmers and VHDL/Verilog experts.

So why do I bring this up? Because I’ve been thinking about the versatility required from engineers in general, not just analog or digital engineers. Routinely engineers are asked to switch modes or tasks or careers in order to get a job done. It’s not that other professions are never asked this; it’s just that the chameleon-like requirement placed on engineers seems to define the profession. Allow me to explain.

What is an engineer?

An engineer puts theories into practice using available devices and elements. They create new products and pass on knowledge through design iterations and trial and error. Their work should be directly applicable to the real world (sometimes in the form of an end-product, sometimes not) and hopefully able to be reproduced successfully in the same form for multiple parties (mass manufacturing). Engineers are often rooted in math and science but require a wide range of skill-sets in order to properly construct an end product.

I think it is important to note that an engineer is different from a scientist, although the line can often be blurred (especially when looking back at the inventors of the early 20th century). In modern times a scientist is usually tasked with pushing the barrier and finding new theories and concepts. This means that the concept will not necessarily be available in product form right away (although this is not always the case), as the product form must be iterated upon and improved for production.

Another interesting point is how the above definition manifests itself in higher education. When I was in school, the focus was definitely on making engineering scientists, that is engineers who are taught to research new methodologies and concepts with the final product in mind. There was much less focus on using existing products (i.e. discrete transistors) to create something new or to solve a problem. I do not think that it is a huge problem, as some of my classmates went on to work on their Master’s degrees or to work in research labs. The rest of us trying to break into industry were a little more strapped on what is expected from an engineer. Let’s go over what some of these things might be.

  1. Flexibility — This could be a theme of this article. Engineers have to be flexible and think on their feet. Again, I’m not saying scientists and other professions do not have to do this, only that it is required for many engineers. I went into my first job (working in a fab) as an electrical engineer student and ended up looking at chemical reactions and doing process engineering. The company I worked for didn’t want an electrical engineer, they wanted and engineer, someone they could teach their methods to and who could pick up the nuances as quickly as possible. I think it’s also important to note that they didn’t just hire engineers, they also hired scientists (don’t worry, I like scientists).
  2. Science and math knowledge — No surprise here, you have to know the basics in order to really get going in the field. However, I think that the interesting thing is that the basics is usually the majority of what you need. I used Ohm’s Law more often in practice than I use the knowledge of how to do the third integral of a sphere.
  3. Design re-use and not trying to re-invent the wheel — This was actually the reason I wanted to write this post, to point out that engineers often enter the field thinking they will be designing every piece of a system from the ground up. First off, this is irresponsible. The industries would never have standards if every engineering firm was trying to redesign a buck-boost converter everyday. Instead, engineers use optimized solutions available from vendors. Not only does it help standardize, it saves time.
  4. KISS — This directly relates to the above point. You have to keep it simple, because there are only 24 hours in a day. I have claimed to be a system designer before (or at least will be). To design a full system, you have to look at the simplest and fastest solutions because they are often the best and most elegant solutions. Not only that, if you don’t do it as fast and simple as possible, someone else will, and then you’ll lose out on a customer, contract, etc.
  5. Learning is pain — Even though continual learning is one of the main reasons I got into engineering, it’s not always fun. It’s not a great feeling when someone asks you to do something and then you have to slink away because you have no clue how to do it. Hopefully you’re slinking to go learn about it and not running away, but that is dependent on the person. The point is, learning is a difficult process and we really learn the most when we’re in situations that stretch us to the limits. In my experience, I always learned more in classes where I worked to get a C than in the ones where I breezed by and got an A.

Engineering is a field I entered because of the myriad things I could work on throughout my career. I did not switch to the digital domain for the money. I switched to digital work because I was asked to and it has been really interesting so far. Programmable logic is something I’ve worked on in the past and something I’m sure will become more prevalent in the workplace as design requirements become more stringent and timetables get shorter. If you are an engineering student or an aspiring engineer reading this article, I would highly suggest the profession (just make sure you note the above points). If you’re an experience engineer, please feel free to leave your experience in the comments. Thanks for reading.

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Analog Electronics Learning Work

My name is Chris…and I’m an analog engineer

Or am I?

I read technical publications on a pretty regular basis. And more and more lately, especially with the lull in the economy, I read about how jobs are going offshore or overseas. Sure, this concerns me, I’m human! Plus, I’ve inherited a worrisome nature from my mother. But I’ve had the fortune of reading a lot of articles about how analog engineers are in short supply. Even how they’re moving into green technologies!

“Yahoo!” I think.

But wait a second, what’s all this.

I have read how analog engineers are hard to find. I know that the experience is both rare and valuable. But what kind of analog engineer I ask? Most of the articles I see are regarding silicon design and regardless of what I have done in the past with Samsung, I have never had the opportunity to look at analog design on silicon. And I have to wonder, am I allowed to call myself an analog engineer? I’m going to go with yes.

Here’s why:

  1. I know how to use an op amp
    • That’s one of those triangle things, right? I use these all the time and they are the basis of any analog engineer’s work. I feel like the main difference between myself and an engineer designing in silicon is I go out and buy a part for a dollar, they just go into a CAD library and plop one down in their design (and maybe mess around with it to get the specs they need). Anyone out there know if this is true or not?
  2. Yes, I even know how a transistor works
    • Granted, my silicon level knowledge is a little weak (I never liked calculating the number of electrons flowing through a PN junction…it just seemed so anti-Heisenburg). But plop an NPN transistor down in front of me (or a symbol of one), and I think I can fare pretty well. A great test of basic knowledge is in the chapter “A New Graduate’s Guide to the Analog Interview”. See how many of this limited passage you can get right.
  3. I know how to put it all together
    • There is a lot more to analog electrical engineering than knowing equations. A good example in my specific branch would be talking to vendors and getting pricing on parts. There are some big swings that can occur on prices of parts! Another example of putting it all together includes other aspects of design you might not think about. How about supporting a product 10 years down the line? I haven’t done this one personally (given my relatively short career thus far), but I’ve had to help out with some designs where the original designers were no longer around. And I’ll tell ya, some of those components were not meant to last! Needless to say, there is a lot of other tasks out there than just thinking up a circuit.

So even though I don’t intend on changing what I call myself anytime soon, I will clarify my skills. I am an analog system designer. Is that too far off? No, I don’t think so. Even the limited amount of design I’ve done really fits into that category. I have strung together a lot of components in order to create systems capable of processing analog signals. Further, sometimes the available system components (op-amps, buck/boost converters, etc) need to be made with passive components because of individual system constraints (meaning the stuff that vendors offer just don’t do what we need them to). I think more and more though, the industry will go towards system designers, simply because of rising costs. As systems get more and more complex, economies of scale mandate that people specialize in order to win business. We have also seen trends where chip makers are beginning to reach practical limits of how much better they can make certain devices (op amps, for instance). As such, we’ll see that the chip makers put more and more functions inside of chips.

So maybe one day I will work for a chip maker, trying to shove more components into a package? I enjoy the thought of creating a component that thousands if not millions would use. Perhaps this will be all that will be left to do? I’d obviously like to start learning it all before it’s the last frontier of design. Perhaps one day our tiny cell phones and other gadgetry will be nothing more than a screen and a single chip with every required function in it. But if I’m not making the screen or the chip, hopefully they’ll still need someone like me to hook that chip up to that screen. Who knows what the future will hold?

One final (and mostly unrelated) note I’ve been meaning to put in a post; writing about analog issues seems to be as good a time as any.  I’m sure at least one or two people noticed (probably not), I changed the tag line on my blog from “Chris Gammell’s Renewable Life” to “Chris Gammell’s Analog Life“. A few reasons: I think it makes more sense (I’m not Hindu, so I don’t really think life is “renewable” per se); the world around us is truly analog (as much as marketers would have us believe that music is “digital”); and to be blunt, I like the sound of it better.  Plus, I doubt too many people will be like “Wait, where is my favorite site??? Ohhhh, it just changed names…”.  This doesn’t mean I will stop looking at issues facing renewable energy, just that I want the focus of my site to be on analog.

That’s all for now. Chris Gammell, analog electrical engineer, out.

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Analog Electronics Life Work

Analog Definition

I have been working on a doozy of a blog post for about a week now. It’s almost there and I will definitely release it this week. However, in the interim I have been thinking about my blog and my (analog) life and realize I’ve never really defined it for many people. And like some others, I get questions about it:

What is Analog? What is my definition of Analog?

Analog is everywhere. Analog is the opposite of digital. It is continuous. It is real. Analog are the sights we see and the sounds we hear. Analog is the beauty of a symphony and the complexity of a transistor.

OK, maybe that last part is a little out there. But let’s get down to it. When I say that I am an analog engineer, what does that mean? It means that I work on devices that are primarily in the analog realm. As an example: If I made an electronic circuit that counted to five, there would be many different ways to do it. However, I think there are two basic definitions when it comes to circuits. I could create a circuit that counts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. This would be a digital circuit, because there are only 5 values, and they are not continuous. However, an analog circuit would count something more like 1.00000, 1.00001, 1.00002, 1.00003… 4.99999, 5.00000. There would technically be an infinite amount of information in between 1 and 5, and the precision would be infinitely more that what I have shown. However, as humans, we decide to define numbers to explain the world in finite amounts, either because of time constraints (it would take a very long time to count otherwise) or because of simplicity (we all learn to count to ten because most of us have ten fingers).

Alright, so that’s a good start. Analog = continuous, digital = not continuous.

So why did I choose analog? Well to be completely honest, I didn’t. I got lucky and was presented with an opportunity to work on analog. It seemed to fit many of my goals and it was a welcome change of scenery, not to mention that analog engineers are pretty scarce (and therefore being one has inherent value). However, the best part is that every day I discover something new about it. The weirdest thing I find though, is that I am working on problems that have been around for 50 years. There are people working on the newest digital devices at the bleeding edge of technology, but that stuff doesn’t really interest me. I like the problems that have been around because there need to be more succinct and elegant solutions. Plus, I think the most interesting stuff actually happens when you take all that digital information in the form of 1’s and 0’s and try and put it back into analog. Or vice versa, getting analog signals into digital form isn’t easy either.

Ok, one last example then I’m done. Here’s a decent way to think about what I do. Say you have an iPod. You hit the play button to turn on your favorite track. What happens? Well to start with, all the digital electronics pulls the data off of the flash memory. Then it says: “OK, I have 1’s and 0’s, now what?”. It pushes these 1’s and 0’s into a digital to analog converter (DAC). Now it’s a tiny little sound wave (but an analog signal, yay!). Ok, so now the iPod says “What volume did they want?”. So it takes the volume you select and it amplifies the signal so it will come out of your headphones at the proper volume (not too loud, kids) and you can walk down the street boppin and groovin. Everything from the DAC forward, is similar to what I work on (I don’t do audio, but the ideas are the same).

So there’s my analog definition. I hope it helps and I will reference and revise this post as my career and life change. Cheers!

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Analog Electronics Life Work

Should I get a PE license?

I’ve never thought of myself as particularly upwards mobile in my career (yet). I’m actually very happy where I am right now, learning as much as I can and progressing through the rigorous on the job learning and tribulations I’ve been experiencing so far. However, the sign of a good career path is one where you are surrounded by people who both push you and are good role models for you. I am lucky to be in such a situation and as such, am thinking about getting my Professional Engineer (PE) certification.

This is actually not as common for electrical engineers as it is for other engineering disciplines. For example, most civil engineers can’t touch anything until they have obtained their certification. With the recent bridge disaster in Minneapolis, I can’t say I really object to this. However, just today I was talking with 2 of the 4 PEs at my company, both of whom happen to be in my group, and both were very convincing on reasons why it’d be good for a young engineer to take the Fundamentals of Engineering (or FE, the qualifying exam).

  1. Use it or lose it
    • Even the sites about the FE exam say it: The sooner you take the exam after school, the higher likelihood of passing it. It makes sense. You’re closer to your exam-taking, all-night-cramming, super-stressed-out days of engineering school. Once you enter the practically driven world of the workplace (as opposed to “academically driven”, to put it nicely), you lose some of those skills and they are hard to get back.
  2. Self-employment
    • Aside from the bridge builders and the others who need a PE to sign off on stuff, working as a consultant or a contractor sometimes requires that you have a PE (as an electrical engineer). As I’ve written before, self-employment is an eventual goal of mine, so that’s another reason to consider this.
    • Many power companies actually require that their engineers have their PE. This is because they work “directly for the people” and because the engineers sometimes actually work as contractors for the power company. Oh, and the stuff they make can really kill people quickly, forgot about that.
  3. Feather in the hat
    • As one of the two engineers I was talking to put it, “If you have 100 electrical engineers in a room and ask who has a PE, maybe two will step forward”. Great point. This is a way to show that you’re capable of achieving AND that you’re willing to stand behind your designs. As I really love reading about (and how this blog kind of came to be), careers these days are all about branding and a PE just helps strengthen your brand.

I could tell myself I’d wait until after grad school, but let’s be honest: grad school is about graduating and getting the paper. I think any time I take this exam, I would need to study pretty far in advance. So why not now?

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Analog Electronics Work

Modesty comes in bulk doses

I am not an analog engineer yet. But I’m learning how to be.

One of the things I love about my company is that they really allow for professional development. I will have the opportunity to go back to school and we have conferences on new technologies. Last week I was introduced to the another great opportunity, a meeting with the senior engineers of the company to just talk shop and bounce around ideas. Today we had another of our weekly meetings with each other and this time we had an outside vendor come in and present new product offerings. Here’s some of the things I learned:

  1. Analog engineers find favorite parts and stick to them
    • Say you’re a salesman. Do you think you’d be in a meeting and someone there would start gushing about the product you sold 10 years ago? How great it was? OK, say you’re a doctor. Do you hear other doctors talking about the great medicines and techniques that were used 10 years ago? No? Well, we do in analog engineering. Either by habit or price or whatever drives a man or woman to talk affectionately about an often-used piece of silicon, it’s kind of weird to hear it. Doubly so when you’re in a presentation for all the NEW stuff that is coming out and you expect the focus to be on that. To be fair, sometimes chip makers get it right one time and then can’t replicate it for a while. But that’s another blog post.
  2. The same point goes for books
    • I guess this point doesn’t really hold up when comparing analog designers to other professions. I’m sure doctors still read Grey’s Anatomy, Salesmen read Dale Carnegie and Priests still read the Bible. But there are some bibles in analog design too. In fact, that was the first meeting I mentioned above. We sat around talking about our favorite books. As someone who has just about no clue about everything, I’ve been grabbing at any knowledge I can get my hands on. I love books!
  3. If you used to work at a company and then come back as a vendor, watch out!
    • Yikes. I’ve seen some pretty rough treatment of vendors before, much worse than today actually (Semiconductor vendors REALLY get the shaft, that’s all I’ll say). But today I witnessed a vendor get hit from all sides. To be fair, I feel that a good deal of the treatment was because he used to work here and then became a vendor. This meant he had personal relationships with a lot of the engineers he was fielding questions from, but he still got some doozies. Makes me think twice about jumping into a field app position anytime soon (besides my cluelessness about it).
  4. There is actually some symbiosis between customers and vendors.
    • As I mention in point 3, I’ve seen some struggle between vendors and users. But today I saw some genuine attempts at bringing the needs of the customer back to the vendor, which gives me a warm professional fuzzy feeling. Plus I’ve heard they even deliver on some of their promises, another reason I’m glad I’m in this new sector (basically you had to be THE biggest player in the semiconductor market to really influence any change).
    • Another great thing is that I found out that some vendors offer free training to new guys like me. That is great because my job requires a little knowledge about a lot of things and then the ability to quickly acquire the remainder of any knowledge. Example: I am told a product isn’t working and it MIGHT be this or that part. Go. (That’s the point I start to scramble).
  5. Converse to the above point, analog engineers love asking for the moon.
    • Well, nothing is perfect, right? And in my experience, analog designers will ask for exactly what they want, even if it might never be possible. But if you don’t ask, you’ll never know, right? It reminds me of the phrase I use when I don’t get my way:
      • “All I want is everything I want right when I want it. Is that too much to ask?”
  6. I’ve mentioned it before, but I have a ton to learn
    • I wrote down no less than 6 things from that meeting that I had no clue what they were. That’s pretty crazy. I had a very general feeling about what they might be about (I actually found out some of them have applications in renewable energy), but I still have at least a good week of reading ahead of me (on top of my usual workload) to figure out what some of these things meant. When I came into this job thinking I’d be learning, I sure had it right.

So to reuse my blog headline, modesty does come in bulk doses when you’re an analog engineer, especially when you hang out with veterans. It’s kind of refreshing though, knowing that I have so much I can potentiall learn. I know it won’t get boring and I know the industry doesn’t plan on slowing down any time soon either. Bring it on.

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Life Work

2 years!

Today is the 2 year anniversary of when I officially entered the workforce. Or as I told my friend today, 2 down, 43 to go. Still, it’s a pretty crazy feeling. A couple things have been going through my head as I think about it.

1. I have a really long way to go

This is pretty obvious given my above comment. But I’m not really looking forward to retirement at all. I like being active and now that I’ve found something I enjoy doing I’m looking forward to what the future has in store for me.

2. I have already changed careers

In the end, my work at Samsung was valuable, but it was not a great situation. I decided to change careers in order to escape work I did not enjoy doing and to not have to deal with unnecessary stress.

3. I have a TON to learn

I’ll be posting more about this later, but it is really humbling when you try talking electronics with engineers who have been in the business for 20+ years. This was a major choice in moving and changing jobs so I knew it was coming. Plus, I really want to learn more.

4. I quit when the quitting was good

Another future post (what? I’m busy, people!) will be about knowing when to quit in bad situations. As much as I miss my friends in Austin, the feel of Austin and the lovely weather, I would do it all again in a heart beat. Sometimes things are just right.

5. Things I’ve accomplished

Short answer: Not much. I could blame this on a lot of things, but really the only one that matters is myself. I did not accomplish much at Samsung other than increasing my knowledge of Microsoft Excel and Powerpoint; I did keep the fab running smoothly and there’s something to be said about that. But I didn’t really change the world at all and I will be working on that more in the near future.

6. I’ve been out of school for 2 years now

This might be the most sobering thought of all. I really still think of myself as a student (not necessarily a bad thing), especially when going to the movies. But there are some different priorities that go along with no longer being a student. I try to network more now. I keep an eye on professional journals and towards any other career opportunities (I’m still happy at Keithley, don’t worry).  I drink less cheap college beer (ok, I still do once in a while). It’s just a different mindset now and I don’t think it’ll change if/when I go back for my master’s.

So that’s about it. 2 years down. Feels weird and I do miss the people I started with at Samsung. But I’d say I’m better off now.

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Life Work

Another new goal: My career

Disclaimer: I am not a hippie

You may say that I have been on the verge of it a few times, but no, I’m not. Hell, you even look at my music choices and some of my political choices, but no, I’m not. Not saying hippies are bad people, I just think they lack some action on their admittedly good ideas, and that’s what I’m going for with all this. I want to define actions I want to take for my career.

I think I’d really like to work on renewable energy longterm.

So why did this come about? First, as anyone who reads these days, renewable energy is a definite need in the future and there will be great interest in it in the future (even after gas prices go back down, as they’re bound to). This in and of itself is not a great reason to change career goals, but I’d be lying if I didn’t say that others talking about it got me thinking about it.

Another reason was because of a recent experience I had. My friend Dave took a few people out on his boat on Lake Erie (not the most carbon-neutral experience, but a fun one for sure). As we were sitting on the water, fishing with the setting sun to our back, I had a great view of Cleveland and the Lake Erie shoreline staring back out at me. I scanned the skyline and what do I see? Probably the most disgusting yellow cloud I’ve ever seen, just hanging over the coal fired power plant on the shore. And as we rode around, spewing some of our own fumes into the air (sorry ’bout that, we’ll take the sailboat next time), I could see that these clouds were not contained to around the power plant. They were everywhere. It was a pretty disgusting site (the reason you can’t see them usually is because of the angle of the sunlight and/or proximity to the lake).

The last reason (that I could think of) was when I almost had an anxiety attack the other day in a WalMart. I was there for a fishing license so I could go on the aforementioned boat and fish; as I stood in a line waiting to talk to a customer representative, I looked out over the immense store that they had just constructed. The shelves upon shelves and rows upon rows seem to go on forever. I don’t know if this was a particularly large WalMart in comparison to their other stores, but this one struck me as being gigantic. And I didn’t quite care about the size of the store (though I did think of the HVAC required for it) so much as all the crap on the shelves they were selling. The unspeakable numbers of trinkets and refined sugars that lay in wait, after their long journey from China where they may have been constructed by tiny hands or old hands or no hands at all. And before that, they may have been just oil in the ground, or sugar growing in the field. The effect it had on me is hard to describe, but it hit me pretty hard; I definitely teared up a little (not in the good way) and had a hard time breathing. I’m not one to stand on a soap box about large corporations, and that’s not what I’ll be doing here, but it made me think about a lot of world issues of sustainability and for that I’m grateful.

So why renewable energy?

As selfish as it may seem, I think it would fulfill a lot of my career goals.

  1. The opportunity for patents (a must-have personal career goal)
  2. Ability to positively affect the world (A long term personal goal too–who doesn’t want to be in the history books?)
  3. High likelihood of having my own company (even though this has no hope of me having reasonable hour)
  4. Working with intricate electronics

So despite my hope to work on this kind of work some day, there’s a long way to go. I know there are already a great deal of solutions out there, but really I would want to work with these people, hopefully from wherever I choose (another life goal). So, why do I think this could work for me?

  1. Background in test and measurement, a sure need for any electronics involving power storage and monitoring
  2. Possible association and/or development around Great Lakes Institute for Energy Innovation. This is an affiliate with my alma mater, Case Western Reserve University (Go Spartans!) and I think they will get funding and will be looking for entrepreneurs and possible grad students to work on this type of thing (I’m looking to go back to school eventually).
  3. Background in DSP, a possible way to improve monitoring capabilities and storage efficiencies
  4. Engineering and business mindset, as opposed to a scientist. Nothing wrong with scientists, just that sometimes the ability to get a product to market requires a different skillset. Profit is not the all important factor here (though it helps maintain a business model); instead, reaching the maximum amount of people at a reasonable cost is the most important factor (to create economies of scale)

The way I see it, there are a few options available to me in ways of working on renewable energy, some more plausible than others.

  1. Solar – There’s not a lot in NE Ohio, but there’s enough, apparently
  2. Wind – Anyone who has walked around Cleveland in the winter can tell you about the wind. The lake seems like a really great source of wind too, possibly the greatest energy resource in the NE.
  3. Biomass – This I would not be able to work on directly, seeing as my chemistry isn’t that great, but I think I could work out some devices to help monitor and improve efficiencies.
  4. Cyanobacteria – Again, biology is a weakness of mine, but I have a good friend considering doing a post doc in something in this field. Again, I’d be more of a measurements/instruments kind of designer, but whatever I can do, I will. And yes, that’d be a long way off, but he’s one of the few I’d consider starting a business with.

And now the most difficult thing, the first steps. Babies always start bolting around the living room when they figure out those first couple wobbly steps, and my development as an engineer interested in renewable energy will be similar I hope. I’d like to start with a small scale solar project. I think there are enough resources online and in print media to get this going, not to mention it won’t hit my wallet as hard as some of these projects can. I think a good first project would involve:

a.) Single solar panel
b.) Deep cycle battery
c.) Create a charging monitor device and/or an inverter
d.) Power small devices such as cell phone charger, etc.

This way I can find some of the beginner issues that would affect any new designs. After that I think I would like to move into more intricate re-designs of some of the components and begin constructing larger systems. I would also be interested in constructing a turbine made from commercial parts, as I have seen similar projects online similar to this idea.

My long term goals for sustainable, renewable energy would be a little bit selfish and hopefully a lot of bit helpful for others. I believe that you need to find issues by trying out products on yourself before you try and send them out to the market place. The first thing I think I would need to do is to create a sustainable living situation in NE Ohio. This would include solar panels on my house (still need to get one of those), efficient insulation and HVAC system throughout the house, a turbine in the yard with a self made battery storage system on my property AND have my electricity tied into the grid. Also, I would have a compost pit (hey, you gotta start somewhere). And the real long term goal would be to possibly break off and start a company, either part time or full time, and create products that would help the entire world become a better place to live.

Hey, I know that my goals are lofty…but I do not think they are unattainable. More importantly, I know that a lot of my conservation goals can start a lot sooner with improving efficiencies in my life and using solutions that are already in place. I hope that I will eventually be able to work on these life-altering energy methods and if you’re interested, I hope you’ll ask to help.

“Things should be made as simple as possible, but not any simpler” ~Einstein

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Life Work

Moving is hard!

So I don’t mean to complain…but well let’s be serious, that’s what blogs are all about, right?

Ok, so I won’t complain per se, but wow, moving is not how I remember it. I’ve even made the same move in the opposite direction. Granted, last time I did not have a dog nor a girlfriend moving with me (having Jess there actually made it easier), but I think I actually had more stuff back then (somehow). In reality, I’ve had it really easy. Here’s some of the stuff that made it easier on me:

1. Movers to pack and ship everything! That was a crazy idea to me. I actually wasn’t allowed to pack anything, or else I was liable. They were really nice too. Now that I’m in Cleveland, all I have to do is say the word and they will come and unload and unpack a bunch of the stuff. How crazy is that?

2. Having a furnished apartment for a few weeks. This saved me and Jess the trip up to Cleveland before we actually moved. Not like there was actually a lot of time in between finding out and our move (3 weeks maybe?), but it took a lot of the stress off. We’ve had the time to look for a place since we arrived.

3. 2 weeks off before starting. Normally I’d say this isn’t much time, but really getting this job was predicated on the fact that they need someone to start as soon as possible. This allowed us the time to find a place, which we are renting. Buying may be something we look at in the next few months with the idea that we would sublet our current place.

So what’s the bad of all this? I mean, we really do have it easy overall. However, there are always downsides:

1. Expense. We had to pay a lot of stuff out of pocket. Most noticeably, we had to pay to ship Jess’ car up here. Sure, we could have driven it up with each of in each car, but that would have been miserable. Plus, we had just had some work done on the car and we weren’t exactly confident in the car. C’est la vie, it’s a tax write off at least 🙂

2. Holy Crap, February is the worst month to move. Doubly so for Cleveland. Man, even moving to Austin would have been bad. As a good example, the moving company that packed and moved all of out stuff only had our stuff coming back up to Cleveland. That’s a huge moving van with maybe enough room to move 2 full houses and it really only had our 900 sq foot house. But nope, we had it all to ourselves, because NO ONE wants to move to Cleveland in February. We’re special!

3. Finding a place. You’d think finding a house in this crappy real estate market would be easy, but it really wasn’t. First off, I made the wrong assumption that the real estate agents were no good around here as I thought they were in Austin. But we ended up using an agent who was really helpful (for a rental). We would have liked to look for a house to buy with this buyers market, but there really wasn’t time. We tried craigslist at first, and that was an almost complete bust. Let’s just say the first house we looked at had this creepy lady who was insisting that we should buy her house…even though water damage on the first floor destroyed almost the entire house…and she showed it to us in that condition. Psychooooooo.

So yeah, I’m a bit of a whiner, but moving really is hard. We are probably moving again in a year, but hopefully we won’t have to deal with it until then. Let me know if you want to see pictures of our new place, they should be up in a bit.

Categories
Life Work

1 goal down…New Job!

I haven’t posted for a while, obviously.

But in the interim, good things have been happening. The number 1 thing being: I got a new job!

I will be working for Keithley Instruments, located in Solon, OH. My position will be Manufacturing Design Engineer, and I will be working directly with my good friend Dave Young. I am really excited about this opportunity and company. Here’s some of the highlights:

  1. I will be doing design work. Not all the time, but some. And the learning opportunities in this position are boundless. That is what has me most excited. Every day will be different, every day will be a challenge; this is the reason I got into engineering. Plus, I will have the opportunity to go back to school for my masters in a related field (analog)! How awesome is that??
  2. Jess will be moving with me to Ohio. We have talked about doing this for a while, mostly because nightshift nearly ruined our relationship. This is a perfect chance for us to start fresh and it is going to be great. Jess will have to find a new job, which is unfortunately stressful for her, but we are hoping she can get back into career counseling, which is her chosen field.
  3. I will be roughly 1200 miles closer to my family. This is obviously not part of the job, but a side benefit. No more hunting for plane tickets and sitting in airports for 8 hours. Now all I have to do is hop on the I-90, watch out for cops and fight the snow! Plus, Jess gets to see Buffalo! (yay?)
  4. I get to meet Jess’ family. Apparently it’s bad form to not meet your girlfriends’ extended family after dating for a year and a half :/ But now I get to! We will be within 2 hours of the farm, where we look forward to seeing her family and watching Lola romp with the cattle.
  5. Back to the job, the hours are flextime, which was a goal listed in my New Years resolution. Make no mistake, these will be non-stop, brain pulsing activity, which is in contrast to the Samsung sit and wait (due to waiting for tools/experiments to finish). This will make for a healthier work environment. Plus I can now spend each evening with Jess and Lola, something I won’t take for granted.

There are, of course, downsides to any situation. And while these should be downplayed in most situations, I think they should be listed here for the sake of historical accuracy (or at least until this blog dies a slow, quiet death)…

  1. The people. How can I describe how wonderful the people have been? Austinites in general are very friendly people and I think I have joined them in that regard. But my friends that I have made while I’ve been down here will be the hardest to leave. Most are friends I made when I started at Samsung and we’ve all been through a lot together. I have also made other friends in town that will be missed dearly, not to mention my roomate Steve, who seems destined to follow me back to Cleveland (he’s followed me everywhere else!). You will all be missed and you will all be visited…by me…and I’ll probably drink all the beer in your fridge while I do…
  2. The weather. No denying that this is a huge climate shift, as it was when I moved down here. The day I wrote this (in February), was 75 and sunny all day. Contrast with the gray and cloudy 40 degree Cleveland, and yeah, there’s a difference. We’re going to try our best to fight the winter blues (tanning, working out, going skiing, beer) and when spring and summer come around, we’ll appreciate it that much more.
  3. The city. Granted, Austin did not turn out to be what I expected. I expected full on, 24/7, can’t escape it, the most euphoric sound ever to bounce off your eardrums, music. Instead I have had some really great concerts and music experiences peppered in with a slew of mediocre bands trying to get their name out by playing covers (when does this work?). Music aside though, I love Austin. It’s like that adolescent kid trying to fit into his old elmo t-shirt. It’s geeky, yet hip. It’s growing, yet feels intimate. It’s old, yet new. I could definitely see myself ending up in Austin again as long as it maintains some integrity and doesn’t turn into Dallas.
  4. The pay is less because I won’t be working nightshift. To this I say: Good riddance. Working at Samsung taught me that quality of life is a very important factor in work. In fact, this extends beyond salary and benefits (both of which were better at Samsung). If you are being better compensated for a job that overworks you and you don’t enjoy the work, you probably need to step back and re-evaluate. So I did…and I tried to get  a new job…and then this one fell in my lap. Sometimes things just work out the way they should, you know?

So that’s it. Pretty big news. I’m super stressed about the move, but I’m sure everything will go fine. I’ll try to update once we get to Cleveland. Ohio, here we come!

Categories
Life Work

New Year’s Resolutions

I’m not one to make resolutions. Personally, I think many times people are setting themselves up for failure when they pick a random day to start doing everything they meant to in life, especially the big broad goals. However, in the spirit of the season, I’m going to throw everything I just mentioned out the window and list some stuff I want to do this year, mostly so I have these things recorded somewhere I’ll view them again.

  1.  Gain 10 pounds of muscle by April. Achieve this by going to the gym at least 2 times per week and doing high intensity lifting workouts.
  2. Be able to play a Chopin piano piece. Also, be able to improvise with piano over a simple chord progression (ii-V-I)
  3. Join a band and play 1 gig in the next year (drums)
  4. Increase my investing prowess by reading annual reports of all currently held stocks and doing thorough analysis of any new stocks that interest me.
  5. Finally and most importantly, I would like to find work that is more fitting to my personality and needs. However, I would like to make sure this position leaves me enough time to live life and spend time with those I love. I am willing to sacrifice money and possibly even my future career prospects to achieve this goal. This means I desire to:
    1. Work roughly 40-45 hours per week (the most negotiable of these desires)
    2. Have flexible vacation time and some amount of assurance that I will not be working on major holidays.
    3. Given responsibility and be judged on merit, and not time spent at the office.
    4. Be driven to create value and something of use to the world and my company
    5. Enjoy spending time with my co-workers

The last item about work is indicative of my generation. We realize that work is a main part of life and want to integrate it with all other aspects of living. To do so I think I need many of the things listed above. To end this post, I will paste in a story that I have sitting by my desk at work and read just about every day. I must admit, I found the story on the wall at Jimmy John’s first (my favorite sub shop), but it was too good to pass up. Here it is with the link where I found it. I hope it helps to illuminate how I think about work.

An American tourist was at the pier of a small coastal Mexican village when a small boat with just one fisherman docked.

Inside the small boat were several large yellowfin tuna. The tourist complimented the Mexican on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took to catch them.

The Mexican replied, “Only a little while.”

The tourist then asked, “Why didn’t you stay out longer and catch more fish?”

The Mexican said, “With this I have more than enough to support my family’s needs.”

The tourist then asked, “But what do you do with the rest of your time?”

The Mexican fisherman said, “I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take siesta with my wife, Maria, stroll into the village each evening where I sip wine and play guitar with my amigos, I have a full and busy life.”

The tourist scoffed, ” I can help you. You should spend more time fishing; and with the proceeds, buy a bigger boat: With the proceeds from the bigger boat you could buy several boats. Eventually you would have a fleet of fishing boats. Instead of selling your catch to a middleman you would sell directly to the processor; eventually opening your own cannery. You would control the product, processing and distribution. You could leave this small coastal fishing village and move to Mexico City, then Los Angeles and eventually New York where you could run your ever-expanding enterprise.”

The Mexican fisherman asked, “But, how long will this all take?”

The tourist replied, “15 to 20 years.”

“But what then?” asked the Mexican.

The tourist laughed and said, “That’s the best part. When the time is right you would sell your company stock to the public and become very rich, you would make millions.”

“Millions?…Then what?”

The American said, “Then you would retire. Move to a small coastal fishing village where you would sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take siesta with your wife, stroll to the village in the evenings where you could sip wine and play your guitar with your amigos.”

Reposted from http://www.noogenesis.com/pineapple/fisherman.html